Christmas 2003
  Christmas was very different to last year. Then, we were living in a Muslim apartment complex, with very little furniture and didn't know many people.

This year, we had our cats and sufficient decorations to make a proper Christmas mess. We not only had a (sort of) Christmas tree but also a poinsettia.  Also, we know a lot of people to go out and shake hands with and give sweets and cards to.

After a bit of shopping and a lunchtime drink we managed to shut off the rest of the world apart from two visitors - a small boy who we think must live round here came round to wish us Happy Christmas (Dave sent him away with a flea in his ear) and our bonkers upstairs neighbour (Hindu) who got pissed and came down to give Dave a bear hug, dribble in his ear and try to drink all our booze.


VIDEO 1: Bandra opening his present (a toilet roll).

Thanks to: Judy, Laura, Dougie, Jen and especially Mick for all the food parcels from England!

 

Food. The Traditional Christmas Paella
We went to the fish market again and spent:

10 rupees each on mussels and cockles, 40 on squid, 80 on scampi and 100 rupees on tiger prawns and langoustines plus 1 chicken (1.8kg live weight) - that's a total of around 4 quid. 
 

  
 
We then spent half an hour looking for fresh peas which we found eventually but then completely forgot to put in the paella anyway.    
Dinner
We planned to eat around four but forgot that if you go to the pub for a pre-lunch drink you have to have someone at home doing the cooking, so it was pretty late by the time we got round to eating.  
We'll be eating paella for some days to come.  
This photo was taken just before a bitter argument about whether to pull crackers before (Cheesman) or after (Williams) dinner. Yet to be concluded.